Not The Time To Celebrate Clinton As Brawler

Not The Time To Celebrate Clinton As Brawler

Tom Hayden

The evidence is that white male working class voters deserted Al Gore and John Kerry by margins of 20-25 percent, long before Barack Obama entered politics. The reasons for this mass desertion are more complicated than race. Clinton should know, because she and her husband embraced the Wall Street policies of NAFTA, WTO trade rules, and the sweeping deregulations and privatizations that kept middle class people working longer hours for less pay, and drove whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians, men and women, into ferocious competition over college admissions and secure jobs. There always was a viable option known as anti-corporate economic populism for the Democrats, but that progressive Democratic tradition was "off the table" during the Clinton presidency. Clinton's new populism on the campaign trail suffered from its appeals to "hard-working whites" and the belligerent threat to nuke and obliterate the enemy in Tehran.

Since when did winning acceptance among traditional white males become such a high priority for a foremost exponent of feminism? Wasn't it to be the other way around, that all men would gradually shed their patriarchal macho codes and join a common struggle for equality and fairness?

Is this the tone the Clinton campaign - and its most ardent supporters - want to leave behind? It's one thing to recognize that the idealism of social movements has to be complemented by a tough realism in contests for political power. But it's another to celebrate brawling, and condemn the press for "primly thumbing the pages of Queensberry" and "scolding" Clinton for - here Faludi uses quotations - being "ruthless" and "dirty." Faludi seems to come full circle, accusing the press of becoming too traditionally female. Anyone watching FOX or CNN, will wonder where exactly Faludi finds these cowering wimps. How about George Stephanopoulos serving as a messenger boy for FOX and Hillary in their accusations about Obama's alleged ties to the Weather Underground?

Let's be absolutely clear. Obama can win the presidency if he loses the white working class by the same wide margin as Al Gore if he adds 4-5 million new young Obama voters, keeps 90 percent of the African-American vote, and wins a majority of Latinos. He should win moderates and pro-choice voters by exposing McCain's zero support for Planned Parenthood positions. He can expect to do very well among voters with his alternatives to Iraq, economic recession, and right-wing court appointments wrapped into his theme of change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/not-the-time-to-celebrate_b_101556.html

:kick:

:kick:

"Obama's support among white males has declined under the hammering of the Clintons, but he still has won white male majorities in ten of 23 states since January. He took 52 percent of the white male vote in Virginia before the negative attacks began, and still held 42 percent of those white males in North Carolina and Indiana
"An interesting question is whether Hillary Clinton and her most ardent supporters can shift from brawling against Barack to embracing him wholeheartedly as the nominee. To celebrate Clinton's brawling at just the moment she appears to have lost means it will take weeks, or longer, to repair the internal damage, learn from the experience, and move forward. The numbers suggest that the Clinton forces can be decisive in Obama's winning or losing in November. And that would perpetuate a schism for a long time to come."

Thanks for posting this, IG.

Indiana went for Obama. Hillary's margin was due to Rush's Operation Chaos. My district went heavily for Obama, and we got lots of white folks here, as well as Black, Asian, and Latinos.

Obama will build just the right coalition. I have great faith in his manner of strategy for election purposes.

:kick:

Neiother Hillary or Bill could remain in place without the media supporting them, and without all the many people who support them.

What Dubai, Saudi, and other lobbying to the Clinton Library and their bottom line of $110 mil in 8 years?????

Oh that's right - it has always been that way! Leave the Presidency and become richer - Just look at Reagan, he got $2 million from Japan!

Read on........

And for My Second Act, I’ll Make Some Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/weekinreview/09seelye.html

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: September 9, 2007

(snip)

A NEW book out last week reported that President Bush wants to hop on the lecture circuit when he leaves office in 2009 — “replenish the ol’ coffers,” as he put it in Robert Draper’s account of his presidency, “Dead Certain.” Ronald Reagan was excoriated for taking $2 million for two speeches in Japan, at a time when the United States was locked in economic battle with his hosts; George H. W. Bush’s association with the Carlyle Group was held up to ridicule in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and Bill Clinton has been lambasted for extracting eye-popping fees, sometimes $350,000 a speech.


:grr:

I'm not all that opposed to $ 350,000 lectures - but is there some sort of secret handshake - "Okay we let you lecture twice a year at the National Petroleum Storage Association's luncheons. So rememebr that when our Association needs some special treatment by your wife the Senator."

And I dislike Bill traveling around with Poppy Bush. Oh I know - ostensibly it is "charity" at work - but then you read about the back room water privatization deals in third world countries and you have to wonder.